yes… the moment we teach a child that the thing flying is a bird, that bird has ceased to become a bird.
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In our dialogue are we exchanging views or does what is seen move together as one?
I am incapable of moving as one mind. Is this so? Obviously we see it is so. What is producing this? Other people? Incorrect organisation? Lack of proper control?
While I am putting forward my view in the dialogue, am I aware of a hidden layer of responding? Is there a deeper layer buried by the production of continual reaction and verbal exchange?
I can answer these questions by producing more and seeing less: or before immediately speaking, can I be quiet, listen and check what is being presented now in the mind, non verbally?
These dialogues are proposed as an invitation for quiet listening and discovery, to see what I thought I already saw. By slowing down and suspending our hard held thoughts or automatic responses, can we together, not know what we’re looking at yet?
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Can we together see that we are not moving as one mind but separate minds? Can we together see the fact and move from there not knowing where it leads?
Dear Erick,
this questions of “when it creates conflict.?” “is it fear that makes us to label the feelings and hold on to permanent?” - are more serious and important to ask and observe.
As you said that “labelling is knowledge” - I see that every knowledge has it’s place when the purpose of knowledge is solved or absent.
Eg. we have technical knowledge about our work and the purpose of this knowledge is ‘mostly’ to earn money. After we are retired - even if we see/hear any work about this knowledge - we don’t give much importance to it by labelling - as the purpose is solved/absent for that knowledge and no conflict is there.
Likewise - these labelling of feelings has a purpose- which is ‘to stop - if it is wrong’. We make an idea within ourselves that ‘laughing/happy’ are good and ‘anger/sad/fear’ are bad. Had you watched - when we laugh/feel happy - we don’t label it - because it feels not bad /wrong and no conflict there.
But when we feel angry/sad/fear - we label this as ‘anger’ to stop it as we have an ‘idea’ that it is bad - and this labelling continues every-time as the purpose is not solved - and this feeling is ‘what-is’ we try to stop it for ‘what should be’ and there exists conflict.
Yes this feelings changes every moment i.e. new.
In my observation - We label it not to hold on to a memory or permanency - but to do something about that labelling by stopping,etc… by comparing it with ideas in our memory.
Thanks and feel free to question this
Regards
Viswa
Dear Viswa,
is it not that in order to label a so called bad feeling we have to know what is a good one? The bad and the good are one movement. Wanting the good immediately brings the bad and avoiding the bad is wanting the good. In fact we do label both. We might not be conscious about it. Indeed we label to stop the bad and wanting the good. But the means to it is knowledge. So the holding on to memory becomes the important thing. Otherwise we cannot label. We do not see this as we are concerned with the wanting. But the wanting is knowledge. Forming ideas and comparing them is only possible if there is knowledge. So actually we want memory, knowledge, hold on to the past. We depend on it, creating this dependence ourselves and then giving it a purpose. So that is an important question you posed: Is it fear that makes us hold to labelling and knowledge? And if so, what is fear?
best wishes
Erik
That’s exactly it. At the moment of conflict, there is just conflict. But the moment I label it as anger, passion, guilt, or any other word, I have become the label. And then follows all the work to justify the label, to explain it away, to change it and so on.
@ErikProchnow
So Erik, you say that to hold on to it - we label.
when we are angry - we label it as ‘angry’ - to hold on to past which is ‘bad’ or ‘good’? I.e. we want to hold on to be angry or to be calm?
Obviously ‘Calm’ feeling right?
This labelling as ‘anger’ creates fear that ‘calmness’ is missing and we try to hold on to the past feeling of ‘calmness’ by trying to control/stop ‘anger’
Edit - and now I see that we both meet at a point - the purpose to stop the anger is to hold on to the calmness of the past.
Dear Paul,
but the conflict itself is labelling is it not?
Yes, but the fear itself is labelling. It is wanting something which is missing or fearing to lose something one thinks to have. So labelling is already the basis for what you describe is it not?
I see that ‘first’ comes labelling - and ‘second’ comparing the past from the label - and ‘third’ fear of the missing past - and ‘fourth’ conflict.
When our boss scolds us - we get angry because of our image is being spoiled and in this anger,
1st - we label as ‘anger’
2nd - we compare it with other days we work with calm attitude
3rd - fear of losing that calm attitude
4th - control the anger which arises conflict.
Suppose there is conflict in our relationship, which provokes a reaction from me. At that moment the whole of me is in that reaction. I am the reaction. And so the reaction has exposed the whole of me to you at that very moment. It hasn’t exposed the parts I want to show you - the humour, the charm, the graceful side of me, the cleverness - but it has exposed the core of me, which is self-protective reaction. So I call it something else; and that’s where the label comes in.
Dear Paul, I question that. Why is there a conflict at all? You might do things which are wrong or I might do things or say things which are wrong or anything might happen that even might harm me physically. But why should there be a conflict? What is a conflict? It is a separation, a division between sides. You might be angry with me but why should I be in conflict with that? When I am in conflict or when I am conflict there has to be a division in myself. I do not want what actually is happening and on this wanting I react. That can only be if there is a kind of labelling, conscious or unconscious. There has to be a centre that divides. That centre is already a labelling, knowledge, is it not?
Dear Viswa,
we can put this into different steps. But actually it is operating as one whole action which is created out of labelling. Because, if our boss scolds us, why should we be angry? It is as you said, because the image is already there and we respond with it. Can we see it is just the image and this labelling which we use to protect ourselves that causes all that trouble? Can we see it as what it is, just an image? An images are never the real, the fact. They are images with a fixed content.
Ah! No. That’s my whole point. My reaction is the whole of me. It is not the division that brings about the reaction. It is the whole of me. The division doesn’t come in until I attempt to repair the reaction with a label.
But the reaction is the division. If you are not in conflict there is no need to react apart from the physical organism that reacts with its nervous system. But in that there is no conflict. If there is no conflict there is no need to react and therefore no need to repair anything. If there is a reaction there is already labelling and conflict involved.
The fact that I exist as a psychological entity guarantees a life of conflict. You annoy me and I react. That reaction is a self-protective response; so the whole of me is in that response. There is no division in the reaction until I try to alter or modify the reaction, which means applying a label to excuse or explain my behaviour. That is the division. So the reaction never flowers. The true energy behind my reaction is never released. And from the division created by the label a new image of myself gets formed; that image then sits in wait for the next attack.
So we can see the cycle of the self as a theoretical description from what I have just said. It is only at the moment of reaction that we can actually meet ourselves as we really are, without any complicating intellectual factors. Then life and relationship is the simplest matter. Because when there is only the reaction with no images, everything is revealed with direct clarity.
Dear Paul,
is there a psychological entity that exists independently or is it just created by thinking, by labelling, knowledge? The existence of the psychological entity is the divsion and therefore the conflict in ourselves because we have to defend it. Why should I react if you annoy me? I only react if I want to protect myself, my image, my labelling. Without labelling, knowledge there is not psychological entity. Indeed the reaction reveals all that. And as long as there is a self, a psychological entity and with it reaction - because as long as there is a self we have to react - there will be conflict, a life in conflict. Do we see that now and end the labelling and with it the self?
But you are still only showing me the theory of it. All I can do is agree with you in the hope that such agreement may effect a change, possibly bringing about an ending to the self. This means I am accepting just another label, which is your description or my own description of the problem.
If you annoy me, I must react, whether it is suppressed or expressed reaction. Like when you tread on my foot, the body must react. Otherwise, I am not alive. When you tread on the image I have of myself, there is no gap between the sensation, the annoyance and the reaction. It is only afterwards that I manufacture the gap, which is thought explaining away the reaction, expressing it by saying, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be angry,’ or suppressing it by making an image of you as a potential threat. In the brief interval before the gap gets created, it is possible to see the entire structure of the self as a direct visceral entity. Then there is no more need for theoretical descriptions because I have felt and met the whole force of it: the self-image, the sensation of the image being hurt, the annoyance at that hurt and the reaction to that annoyance. Then there is no more image-making. And so the whole structure begins to crumble. It is not then about me ending the self, which is a preposterous idea. Instead, the self so exposed has nowhere else to hide.
Hi Erik - now i can see what you are saying.
You are confused that - ‘labelling/naming/images of feelings’ are same as ‘images of me/someone/something’. But those two are different things.
When our boss scolds - there is no anger until ‘image’ is hurt (Here this image of me/someone/something is present always like sub-conscious/habit - and when boss scolds - without labelling - images of me get hurt instantly/immediately) and the labelling of this feeling comes only after the feelings. So this ‘labelling’naming’ (including ‘images’ of feelings of ‘calmness’) are the effect of feelings and ‘images’ of ‘me/someone/something and not ‘images’ of ‘feelings’’ getting hurt are the cause/root of feelings.
Before going into this ‘images’ of ‘me/someone/something’ (and not image of feelings)- can you observe this ‘labelling/naming/images of feelings’ as a whole? - do you have any questions about this ‘labelling/naming/images of feelings’ and not ‘images of me/someone/something’? If there is no question regarding this - we shall end this here and start to inquire about ‘images’ of ‘me/someone/something’.
Thanks
Viswa
Good morning Paul, why will you agree anything someone says? Why should you accept anything? That can only be if you want to follow, orientate yourself. Why will one not find out for oneself? In that lies the conflict because how do you know what someone else says is true or not. And still question stays, why should we react at all? That can only be if a self exists and if we expose the self like you described, has it ended at all? Or have you just found relief in a situation and will be back to the whole process the next moment? If the self continues it is not understood. Division and conflict continue. So is this what you describe a real fact and an understanding of the self as a whole or just an idea, a theory?